I’m not sure when it started. My problem’s been growing steadily in recent years, but I think it all began about 15 years ago when my parents received a gift from their friends in Arizona. I stood next to my mother while she opened the box and unwrapped the mounds of white tissue paper. She gently pulled each one out, and I stared, mesmerized by the colors. They were the funkiest and most beautiful champagne flutes I’d ever seen. Tall and majestic, hand-blown and thick, they were like pieces of art, with each stem differing in color—bright blue, orange and yellow—from its bowl. My mother placed them on a round tray in her dining room, where they’ve been sitting ever since.
My interest was piqued when I moved into my first house 12 years ago. No longer cramped in a city apartment with a tiny galley kitchen, I was faced with seemingly endless cupboards to fill. And that they did. First with some Hungarian clear, crystal old-fashioned glasses with small fish-shaped etchings, which I picked up at Crate & Barrel. Then with some Morroccan-inspired glasses (3 red, 3 blue, 3 green) from Shabby Chic in Soho. My husband drank his Scotch with the fish, while I sipped my wine “from” Morrocco. We also had some traditional wine glasses—basic ones that suited any kind and color of wine, and that wouldn’t make me cry if they broke. (We’d quickly returned all of our wedding-registry crystal, knowing we just weren’t mature enough at 25 to have such expensive glassware.)
About seven years ago, my appreciation of/love for/focus on (I really don’t like the word “obsession”) accelerated when we moved into a bigger house with even more cabinet space. They were just begging to be crammed with new colors, shapes, textures and sizes…of glassware.
My husband and I picked up some pilsener glasses at a brewery in Vermont, and some every day white and red wine glasses from Bloomingdales. On vacation in the Berkshires, we perused in a store in Hudson and I simply had to have these hand-blown glasses with a rich, brown tortoise pattern. I couldn’t wait to make room for those.
Now when I wasn’t buying glasses for my own use, I was deriving deep satisfaction buying them for others. I bought Reidel “O” glasses as gifts on more than one occasion, and the same set of the most exquisite, stemless champagne flutes for two girlfriends (they live far away from one another so I knew I’d get away with it).
Things got a bit more intense a year ago, when I befriended a publicist who has ties (read: discount) to a company that makes some pretty amazing glassware. My kids have started making fun of me, as the boxes arrive on a seemingly regular basis bringing so many glasses (well, I needed some stemless for us, too, and then I fell in love with a few other varieties) that I’ve had to relocate some of the older models to a basement closet. I know my husband hesitates after he opens a bottle of wine—his eyes spin around with confusion as he approaches the cabinets and their growing collection, trying to select the “right” glass.
I’m really trying to curb my habit, and have cut myself off from any additional glass purchases for a while. But I may need to eventually clear a little more space, as I’m still secretly hoping that one of these days, my mother will pick up that tray in her dining room and offer me those flutes from Arizona.
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Once I felt the way you do. Glasses were a work of art to me. Then a tragic house fire wiped them out. Now my memory is clouded. Too much black soot damage! Any clear cup will do. Loses change our vision.